The enrichment of low-abundance proteins in complex biological samples plays an important role in clinical diagnostics and biomedical research. This work reports a novel one-step method for the synthesis of aptamer-modified graphene oxide (GO/Apt) nanocomposites, without introducing the use of gold, for the rapid and specific separation and enrichment of human α-thrombin from buffer solutions with highly concentrated interferences. The obtained GO/Apt nanocomposites had remarkable aptamer immobilization, up to 44.8 nmol/mg. Furthermore, GO/Apt nanocomposites exhibited significant specific enrichment efficiency for human α-thrombin (>90%), even under the presence of 3000-fold interference proteins, which was better than the performance of other nanomaterials. Finally, the GO/Apt nanocomposites were applied in the specific capturing of human α-thrombin in highly concentrated human plasma solutions with negligible nonspecific binding of other proteins, which demonstrated their prospects in rare protein analysis and biosensing applications.
Keywords: aptamer; graphene oxide; graphene–oxide hybrid material; α-thrombin enrichment.